The Walkmen Drop iTunes EP, Tour

It's never a bad idea to see the Walkmen live. The NY band has made plenty of great records, but sometimes those great records have a way of fading into the background. When the dude's standing right in front of you, though, it's pretty impossible to tune out Hamilton Leithauser's throat-shredding (but somehow still suave) scream. Those guys make it look easy.

As announced in a Walkmen MySpace blog post, on August 11, iTunes will make available a little piece of the Walkmen's live sound with the release of the band's Live Session EP. It was recorded live at New York's Electric Lady studio.

And over the next few months, you'll have plenty of opportunities to catch the Walkmen live, especially if you live in or around New York City. On August 14, they'll be in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, as part of the museum's goofily named It Came From Brooklyn series. The event will also include comedy from Leo Allen and a reading from the former music critic Colson Whitehead, who is a beast when it comes to this writing thing. (If you like books that are good, you should seek out John Henry Days.) Two days later, the band will be at Central Park SummerStage with Dinosaur Jr. After that, the Walkmen will hit the road for a North American tour, with Here We Go Magic opening.

Those dates, along with the Live Session tracklist, will magically appear below when you click the jump.

Live Session:

01 We've Been Had
02 On the Water
03 Over Your Shoulder
04 All Hands and the Cook
05 138th Street
06 In the New Year